Canadutch » Headaches

Bad Genes!

Breigh — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:55:21 +0000

I love my mom and dad, but I’ve decided that they’ve passed down some pretty rotten genes.

I have my great grandmother from my mother’s side, Grannie’s, ass. I know this because my sister has the same ass as me and Grannie is the only person I can think of when I go up the family tree that had one to match. THANKS GRANNIE!! That’s a sarcastic thanks, because if you’ve ever seen my ass, it’s huge. I even have a convenient butt shelf! You know, where my back ends and my ass begins completely horizontally. I guess actually would be convenient if I lived in one of those countries where I was always carrying a child or a sack of grain on my back. Here in the Netherlands (and most of the rest of the world) all it does is make it hard to find pants to fit my ass and my waist at the same time.

I have my father’s temper, which means when I go to the store and find a pair of jeans to get over my giant ass and they are way too big in the waist, I get frustrated and pitch a fit…

… but I have my mother’s soft heart and need to be liked, so then I spend a half hour apologizing for it.

I also have his height, which wouldn’t be so bad if the only thing his father had ever given to either of us was his family’s uncanny ability to gain weight and never lose it. So I’m short and gain weight just from walking through a supermarket while my great grandmother’s ass follows me around everywhere.

My father’s mother, my Nana Muriel, has left me her fair share of funky genes as well. She had hay fever and Eczema and passed one on to my dad and one down to me. Of course, I had to get the visible one. They are both tied in to each other so when the hay fever season comes around and some people sneeze, I scratch. Thankfully this has improved greatly as I’ve gotten older but I definitely felt the physical and emotional pain of it when I was the scabby child.

Now, it turns out that all these headaches I’ve been experiencing lately may be migraines. Nana Muriel strikes again! She and my father both had problems with migraines over the years and it looks like I won the gene pool lottery on that one as well. The day before yesterday I was in complete agony, leaving me feeling like last night’s leftovers yesterday. This has been a far too common occurrence over the past few months. The doctor prescribed me muscle relaxants a few weeks ago thinking it was a pinched nerve, but they may as well have been sugar pills. I felt no different and still felt like I was about to die, so at my visit to our company doctor yesterday (which I will discuss in more detail at a later date, as it involves work) he said he suspects I am developing migraines.

So, I know I don’t know many of you… but if you’re ever in Rotterdam and see a tiny little fat woman with four asses that’s scratching with one hand and holding her head with the other…come say Hi!!

Relax, Have a Puppy!

Breigh — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:04:37 +0000

At the moment I am off work for a few weeks. It sucks, and I feel like a total arsehole but I guess I need to accept my limitations.

Going back to a 40 hour week after 9 years of being a housewife, ok… might have been able to manage if it wasn’t something too busy or stressful.

Going back to a busy and stressful job after almost a decade of not having to answer to anyone? Only if it’s part time, at most.

Going back to a 40 hour job that is stressful, busy, slightly unstructured and endlessly confusing. — Disaster.

Yeah, I bit off more than I could chew and after five months of trying my hardest to manage, I got sick. Not sick in the vomiting kind of way but stressed and getting physical reactions to it (headaches, anxiety, and other things I’d rather not discuss that have to do with the lower back end, that’s all I’ll say). My huisarts (family doctor) knows my history and told me I was probably a bit ambitious to take on this kind of job full time. I had been seeing her about some of the symptoms and as they had been going on since about April and hadn’t healed, she told me I needed some time off and to contact my company doctor.

So I did, and he agreed and now I am off until further notice. I see him again on July 2nd and we’ll take it from there. My work has been VERY understanding about it and seem quite keen to compromise in regards to the hours so when I’m feeling better we will talk about it and go from there.

You’re probably wondering about the title of this entry, and those of you who know me are already shaking your heads but I swear this one wasn’t my fault. You see, my husband has been itching to get a puppy for a while. He’s been in love with one breed in particular and has always wanted one but I had always refused because it would have been too much with the animals we already had. I always said that once the cats were gone I would definitely consider having two dogs.

Well, since Spencer has been back there has been a tremendous change in him. It seems that being the only cat in the house suits him and it’s like we don’t even HAVE a cat most of the time. The hair is hardly an issue at all and he is as quiet as a mouse. It’s quite mind boggling, really.

So, the cat issue being out of the way, and me being home… Xander got me while I was weak and I said yes. So now we have a puppy. Not quite sure how housebreaking, crate training, pee on the floor and one older jealous, barky and out of sorts dog is meant to help me de-stress, however.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s a cutie and I love her, but man – what was I thinking?!! I blame Xander, I couldn’t say no to him again… especially after all the pets we’ve gotten over the years because I wanted them.

Whatever, I’ll manage somehow. The little shit better be worth it (you can probably take that as being the puppy OR Xander, although I’m already fairly certain Xander is). It’s not that bad really as I watch over her in the mornings and he’s home by about 1pm and takes over then so I can chill out a bit. He knows that if he wants to have a puppy at this time he will have to take on a lot of the responsibility himself.

So anyway, let me introduce — PIXEL!

She is an 8 week old cross between a Miniature wire-haired Teckel (Dachshund / Wiener Dog) and a Chihuahua. She’s very small with short little legs and a long little wiener body, pretty cute, I must say.

Bailey is not sure what to make of her. At first he was scared to death of her and now he’s reached the curious stage and just crouches down with his arse in the air and tail wagging while barking his head off at her.

To Spencer, she may as well not even exist. He just walks around or over her to get where he is going and otherwise pretends she is not even there.

One Week Headache

Breigh — Sat, 24 May 2008 04:35:41 +0000

I have had a headache for that last week straight. Sometimes it’s killer, other times it actually feels like it’s going away. I think it’s all the stress since we came back from holiday, but thankfully all the things we’ve been stressing over have been sorted out.

Some things aren’t worth mentioning, so I won’t get into them. I do have an update on the cat situation though.

Lets recap… a week ago Friday the cats went to the shelter. 24 hours later the shelter calls telling us to come get them because Spencer has gone bezerk. Friday night a lady calls that found the cats on Marktplaats (a site where I had advertised them) asking if I’ve found a home for them. They come and meet the cats, staying at our place till 1am. On Saturday evening we take the cats to them to help them settle in.

On Monday I get an email while at work. Spencer was starting to act out, getting up on shelves and swiping at her when she tried to get him down. I phoned her to tell her that he was probably just scared and that it would be best if she gave him some space and let him come to her. I hadn’t heard anything else for a few days so I assumed they had started getting along.

Then I got this on Wednesday:

Hi Tammy,

Can you please come tonight any time and get Spencer, if you insist Salem too. This morning everything went very wrong when no warnings around to see Spencer attacked again (after the nicest of morning greetings). This time I ended up at the doctor – he decided not to stitch my hand but I got antibiotics and a Tetnus shot… and I think I lost my sun glasses there too. No longer impressed sorry, he’s all yours again.

Linda

Okaaay, so maybe they weren’t getting along so well after all. Dammit!

Xander and I discussed our options at length and after deciding and re-deciding what feels like a million times, we ended up going and picking up Spencer. Just Spencer. The reason being that he is getting older and set in his ways and just refuses to live with anyone but us (seriously, in our house we can swing him by the ears and he’d never flash a nail, never.). We also agreed that it would be easier to maintain a house with one cat rather than two.

It absolutely broke my heart leaving Salem behind. When we were there he was rubbing all up against me and in my mind was saying ‘Take me home!’. Needless to say I spent all evening in tears when we got back home, wondering if we had made the right decision… AGAIN.

Now that a few days have passed I’m sure we did. Salem is getting along great in his new home and Spencer is home with us and quieter than I’ve ever seen him. Maybe he’s scared to death we are going to ship him off again!

I’m not even religious and yet I pray to god that this entire ordeal is over. It may seem like a silly thing to some but deciding to re-home your pets is a big decision and within the last week we’ve had to make that decision numerous times. Now I think we can finally relax and adapt to the new situation.

At the moment the family feels a little incomplete without Salem but I’m reminding myself that he is in a good home where he is the ‘only child’, which means he’s getting a lot more attention than he’d probably get here with us. All I can do is take their word for it that he is happy.

Ok well that’s about all this pounding headache will let me write. Back later with more (hopefully non-cat related) news.

Twist of Fate

Breigh — Sat, 17 May 2008 07:05:21 +0000

Last night at 9:30pm I was sitting on my sofa with the mother of all headaches. The past two days had totally warped my brain and I just wanted the time to go by until bed, so that I could wake up to a brand new day.

Then I heard my phone alerting me that I had a message. When I checked my voice mail I had a message from a lady named Linda asking me if I had found a home for my cats yet and that she and her husband were really keen to see them.

I couldn’t believe it. My head hurt so bad I could barely move but I had to call her back before it was too late. When I phoned her she said she was sure someone would have taken them by now but that she and her husband had moved here a while back from New Zealand and really wanted to get cats. They had to rehome their cats before moving here so they knew what I was going through.

They asked when they could see them and I told them whenever was convenient for them. Before I knew it Xander and I were rushing to tidy up and Linda and her husband were on their motorcycle on the way over.

They showed up at a little past 10:30pm and we all sat down for a chat. They are around my parents’ age I think and gave off a really friendly vibe right from the start. They stayed here chatting with us and petting the cats until almost 1:00am!

The best part? They got to see the cats in their home environment and both cats ran to the door to greet them and purred lovingly between them on the sofa as our visitors lavished pats and attention on them. The second best part is that I got to witness it. I got to see who they are, what kind of people they are and that my cats were not afraid or put off by them. It was quite the opposite really, the entire time they were here one of the two was climbing up into their laps looking for some lovin’.

I loved them, they loved my cats. It’s a perfect situation because we also get to see where they live. Tonight we are bringing the cats and their belongings over to their house and we can help ease them into their new surroundings.

I really really liked these people and she has already said that we can keep in touch and she will send me updates on how the cats are doing. Heck, I’m sure if I wanted to I could even visit them now and then.

Let me tell ya, if I never believed in fate before I do now. If Spencer hadn’t completely lost his shit at the shelter, then we wouldn’t have taken him and Salem home. Then when Linda called, I would have told her the cats were gone already. The cats would have been at the shelter for god knows how long and eventually gone to a home with god knows who, while I would be left to always wonder.

This was all meant to happen, somehow… it was worth all the heartaches and HEADACHES to end up finding these wonderful people who I know will give my babies a fun and love filled life from now on.

So, wish us luck tonight that nothing goes wrong. Mostly, pray for me that Spencer doesn’t go off the deep end again. I’m hoping that when we get there and let him out it will be different as it’s a home and we will be there.

Fingers crossed!!